Turnips

So my supervisor made a joke about eating turnips in a research group meeting because i made some meatloaf and i bought parsnips instead of turnips to include in the meatloaf while i was in my "make my own lunch to save money" phase.

Later he sent out an email about his christmas party for the research group, in it he included a line about "meat and sausages provided but if you want turnip you'll have to bring your own".

So now i have got everyone in my office believing that Turnips are traditional housewarming presents, and they are each taking a turnip with a ribbon on it as a present for him.

Even the people who know that its not true are taking a turnip so that the others dont get suspicious. Its all highly amusing. People are buying the con, others are knowing buying the con so not to give it away, its increadibly amusing on many levels.

However i spent most of last night giggling to myselft over the awesome evil genius-ness of it, so now i dont feel as giggle happy about it. But still, my evil plan is going to work, mwahahahahaha.

Next time i'll aim higher, GLOBAL DOMINATION (its a joke really, but play along so noone else catches on...)

bung finger

So i either dislocated my pinky on my right hand, or maybe broke the tendon, i cant stretch my pinky straight, but there is no pain, but its really annoying. I did it boxing, my partner was a british guy who was really enthusiastic, but kinda annoying because he countered with the focus pads too hard. He didnt even really give me time or space 2 twist my wrists to pynch correctly. If i have done some real damage, ie needs surgury or even visiting a physio i have 2 pay, im gona b so annoyed. Everytime i start getting some progress at the gym, some stupid thing comes up, colds etc. It shits me so much.

Edit: Its the next day and it hurts a bit, but now i have full range of motion again, so guess it was a short lived dilema.

ghosts?

Does anyone believe in ghosts? I keep seeing someone out of the corner of my eye but there is noone there. Its asif someone ia walking up 2 me and i look up and noone is there.

mobile post

So i just found out i can blog on my phone. Yay 4 being at a bar b4 anyone else. Actually this place is nice and relaxed atm. Btw i was just wondering if i should move overseas 4 work. Try and get a job in germany, that is the place 2 b 4 engineering afterall. :p

This is slow 2 do without swipe. I dont really like the desire keyboard. :p

Presents!

Its christmas time!

Its also birthday time for my household (3 birthdays in 2 weeks after christmas).

I like buying people presents, but im also lazy... brb christmas office bbq...b. wasnt too bad, there was beer and pavlova.

Anyway, i like buying presents for people, but i find that if it takes more than a few days to come up with an idea i usually give up fairly easily. its hard to decide on waht to buy my flatmate tho. i got one of them something i thouht was really nice. It was a group present, and i organised it.

But one of my other flatmates made some comment about how presumtuous it was to buy presents for people without asking them if it was something they want. I got really annoyed at him for saying this, and i think its because i enjoy trying to find something for people who i like and so it was somehow saying that i dont really like those people properly because i am presuming too much in deciding what they want to recieve.

Anyway it is him who i cant think of to get a present. And while normally i would give up at this point and just not bother to get a present at all, he knows that i got this other flatmate a present because he went in on it. So in total it would be very "fuck you" if i didnt. And although i dont think he got me a present for my birthday, giving other people a present is more about me than about them. Its how i can show i feel i like them enough to give them a present, that i feel like i know them enough to choose for them, and how not showing that would make me feel bad. Its not an equality thing.

So now i need to come up with a present for him, or at least go in on a group present, although i dont normally like going in on group presents unless i agree with the present in question. I dont really have any ideas tho.

I managed to get presents for my sister and my brothers gf, i have ideas for my brother, my parents, my aunt and one friend from highschool. I still have little to no idea for my other sister and her husband, my cuz or a couple of my friends i decided to get presents for this year.

Im also making some desserts and bringing some wine to my sisters christmas party this year. although i havent worked out recipe ingreadiants yet. I am inspired by fodder to cook for my family to show how i feel for them.

Tbh, i almost dont feel like getting my flatmate anything, he has been a bit of a shit lately, nothing major, just annoying me here and there. But i know afterwards i will regret the missed opitunity, you only have one birthday a year.

Also me and some friends are goin away for new years, and i decided to bring some champagne and mixers to make simple champagne cocktails for the girls who are coming. I think it would be nice to bring them something that they might like. Normally the girls dont get treated specailly enough i think, i know that sounds a bit sexist, but i am not doing it because i feel they are less capable or etc, as i know they could sort it out if they were interested. Instead i am doing it because i want to, because i want to show them some consideration and that i enjoy their company. Maybe the sexist element here is the idea that because they are girls they will like champagne cocktails, but i ASKED. :P

Dear diary today I...

went to the gym.
had lunch with my psychology phd friend.
called up alot of people to organise activities for the week.
worked on a simulink simulation.
will have gone boxing (hopefully with my brother) this afternoon.

This morning in the gym I realised im slowly getting the inverte V shape on the back of my arm from well defined triceps. Thats cool. Make me all manlied. But its not even between my left and right arms. Thats very disappointing, I dont want to be asymetric.

I think I annoyed my psychology friend with my saying "I need to think of people as an extension of physical reality only, and also that people who are willing to do me a favour are willing to do so because *I'm so awesome I convinced them they want to help me* otherwise I have trouble asking people for help". Its kinda true. But a fair ammount of hyperbole. There are some people who I hate asking favours off. Mainly people who I am jealous of i think, its like saying to them, "Im not as good as you, I cant do it without you". Which i dont like. So if I try to imagine myself as more of a (what i understand to be a) sociopath, i think along the lines of "use every available resource to get yourself ahead, including the fact that you can be socail enough to convince X they want to help you".

Its like: you train and then run the race and you win, its your acheivement because you trained your body, your ability to run is a part of you. Therefore, getting someone to help you is, you "trained" yourown socail ability (or charisma), to the point you could use a specific person as a tool for acheiving your goal, your ability to manipulate people is a part of you.

Possibly this is a very negative way to talk about skills and abilities. It maybe that saying youre manipulating people is getting them to do something that they dont want to. But i think getting someone to do something by making them want to help you is still manipulation, and mayb its not diliberate on your behalf. And maybe you in return help them out from time to time, maybe your tendency to help out that person is part of what makes them (manipulates them to ) want to help them in return. I still see it as a manipulation of another person.

But then, when I help someone, is it not their ability to manipulate me? Except i like helping people. Ah but thats just because i've been manipulated into wanting to help, although it is still mostly a sincere emotion for me. In that case, i believe i am convincing myself i am manipulating other people when i ask for help simply to save face on my own emotional level. But i dont need to for when i help them out. So it is a self deception to say "my asking X for help is my own acheivement because i made them like me enough to want to help." But whatever works.

I kinda forget what else i was going to write about...

I do love them andorphins from the gym tho, they made me feel like singin as i was working out. which i did a little bit, but then i got some weird looks so i settled down.

In other news, still havent heard back from Ms travel to america. I think she found a replacement me. DAMN THAT GIRL. I wanted so badly to find a replacement her for the seven months she is away, but i havent, noone is as fun to hang around with, or as free with their time for me.

I watched the latest harry potter on satruday, and the part where harry and hermoine try to cheer each other up by dancing together to the radio made me want to just hang out at home with a few drinks, a friend, some muse or vast, and dance in the loungeroom with the projector playing visualisations on the wall. Like goin out to a club, but more laid back. But then where was Mel so i could do this? Stupid America. I dont think i know anyone else i could convince this was a fun idea.

I want to learn to be relaxed enough to just enjoy dancing when-ever where-ever without the need to be intoxicated. Dancing is fun.

La la la la la.

I feel restless, im going boxing in 2 hrs, i feel like im full of energy, but if i was to do something, i would run out before i wore out. I slept intermittently last night and this could be a resultant mild mania episode. Brittle high feeling.

Stress

I have developed an eyelid twitch. This makes me feel like an old person, since I relate twitches to fortyish stressed out middle class people. Anyway, I looked up the causes online, using google of course (in ie :p). Main causes are: stress, tiredness and caffine.

tiredness + stress -> caffine -> more tiredness -> more stress etcetera.

I have been very tired these last few days (im particularly tired today because on the weekend I: worked 3 shifts on a yarra-cruise event-hire boat; stayed up drinking friday; met up with someone saturday after work; stayed up late-ish sunday doing the many loads of washing i needed to do (i know that doesn't count as interesting, but it still meant I didn't get much sleep); and got up early-ish for a job interview this morning). But the twitch started before that.

I do drink alot of coffee. Only because im tired and its also just something to do when im at uni and don't feel like doing research (which is nearly all the time). But not more than i am used to drinking (between 0-3 cups per day inclusive).

Stress: I think this is the main new thing in my life, my body shows all the symptoms of someone under stress. But i don't really feel stressed. I have changing social life, money issues due to lacking a scholarship, more demand on my time due to increased sports/exersise activities, demand to produce finalised results in my research etc.

Stress factors are then:

- Lack of money
- Performance at work (research)
- Physical activity (sports/gym etc)
- Socail life

LACK OF MONEY: This one is a big one, because without money, i cannot afford to go out with friends to do anti-stress activities like ice-skating, movies etc. I can't afford to eat a varied diet, although i'm making sure i get vegies and meat, its a bit boring. I keep focussing on the need to save up money for next months rent even if i just paid for the current month.

PERFORMANCE AT WORK: This seems like it feeds into itself. I get stressed because i need to produce results, but because im stressed and my stressor response is aversion, i dont get anything done, which means deadline sneak up and the pressure builds up. This also limits my enjoyment of socailising etc because I am always thinking, "actually i should be doing X not going to the movies with my friends".

PHYSICAL ACTIVITY: This is more indirect, since the actual sports is alot of fun and i think it reduces my stress in the short term. But since i am wearing out my body trying to get into shape, i need to eat more and sleep more, or i get sick easily. And then when i am sick or out of time and i miss out on doing sports, i can't stop thinking about how i should have just found a way to fit it in anyway. It also uses up my money, and so, adds to to my lack of money.

SOCIAL LIFE: I feel a little isolated of late, which means i keep trying to do more stuff and that just makes me have less time for other things. Also it costs quite a bit to do stuff like go to the movies or go ice skating or anything really. Even going to the beach, you either need to purchase lunch or coffees or icecreams. Or you can bring it from home or go without. But it still makes it difficult. Also i feel like my life is a bit behind where it should be, i feel a bit like a child playing at being an adult. I try doing things because i think I should, rather than i want to do them. Although i get the strong feeling that I SHOULD want to do them. The desire to fit into my own concept of what i should be compels me to actions i dont really want to do, which leads to a dissonance of action and thought.

However, in the end, I don't FEEL stressed, but its the only thing that makes sense as to why i have trouble sleeping, cant gain weight, keep getting sick (i think im coming down with something AGAIN, so annoying, i want to purchase an improved imune system, anyone selling?) and can't concentrate on my work.

I booked a doctors apointment to do a general health checkup to see if there isn't some underlying cause of this stress on my system, and if there isn't, to get some chil' pills so i can sleep better. In the end, I think stress is mostly a sleep pattern thing: not enough sleep -> irritable and distracted -> reduced performance/enjoyment -> stress -> harder to sleep.

Now to finish with a positive point, i went to a job interview for a gaming room attendant role today. The manager was saying it was important to him that his employees had a balanced work/family/socail/sport life, and he could tell the balance in sport life would be important to me, because i was "obviously keeping [myself] in good shape".

"Random Compliment in a Job Interview from the Interviewer" Quest: COMPLETE!

Complicated Much?

I think I live for struggle, but with double think in play.

Now to explain. My life is going pretty sweet at the moment, Im very happy about this.
- I have work everyday this weekend
- My bills are paid for until after christmas
- I have a job interview on monday
- I sparred at boxing on monday past (I know I have mentioned this alot)
- Got hickies (was on my to-do list)
- Saw a movie for free on monday
- Had an excellent week for sports last week (won against a good player in squash who i hadn't won against before, won at field hockey, did well at boxing (the instructor said), managed to do two hours of gym mon/wed/fri, rode in to uni tue/thur via a 20ish k route, 500m in the pool after the ride etc)
- Finished two abstract submissions for a conference next year
- Found my accelerometer and gyroscope based estimation of a signal in my experiments correlate well
- Enjoyed working on the yarra cruise boat as a bar tender

the list goes on and on...

Now heres some other things I've done:

- I was chatting to my friend who is doing a PhD in psychology, and was saying I think it would be interesting to be the abused person in an abusive relationship to see what it is like. She said I'm an idiot. But it interests me and i feel that it would be the only way to experiance it.

- I was sitting on the couch with a flatmate, and we were sitting closer than we normally do and i could see his face close up and was wondering what my face looks like from that distance, and that reminded me that no matter what i do, i will never experiance who I am from an external perspective. Except perhaps if i try some dissociative drugs (mostly i think these are illigal, so thats a big negative to trying, but also dangerous, hard to come by and not cheap), but even then it is just an experiance of perceptual variation.

- Got sad that I had to resort to government handout for money when I went to the free employment agency that lined up the interview for monday (although I havent recieved any payments yet), because i felt it made me a bum who had wasted my degrees/ I'm too good (embalished conciet for examplory effect :p)/shouldn't have to resort to that etc.

- After I got all proud of the fact I got hickies, I first thought it meant I was really good, drove them to intense passion etc. Later I wondered if it wasnt more like they were trying to make it more intense for themselves. Hard to explain my idea here, but it goes along with like "trying to entice more emotive response from your partner by increasing the intensity of the sensation of touch." They gave me a hickie to try to increase my response because pleasing your partner can be intensly satisfying and they felt I wasnt engaging enough.

I supose im trying to demonstrate my overthinking of situations. And from that, I beleive I overthink things until I percieve the situation as involving struggle, that I need to believe my accomplishments are more meaningful because I overcame some (self imagined) barrier. Or I'm too pesimistic and I feel that any situation that seems all good is too "story book" and I don't beleive I'm objectively veiwing a situation until i can see negatives in it.

I had a teacher in high school say to me "You're only happy when you're depressed". I believe its more: I like imagined struggles because it makes me feel successful.

Anyway, I'm not sad about this, I think it makes things more interesting if it is the case, however at some point it may become a hinderence. But c'est la vie.

My survey has another result

Dont know if when i mentioned it, but i've been getting "your a good/great/amazing kisser" compliment a few times lately, and i wondered if it was a stock standard thing. Because its common enough compliment in the movies etc so maybe everyone just says it.

Well i got it again, and again i wasnt fishing for compliments, it was just out of the blue. So maybe i may be fairly good at kissing.

Thats almost all, but leave with one (probably vulgar) question, is it ok to give hickies? I know if you in a passionate moment it may be fun, but the next day that person has a "I got reasonably far and maybe further last night" written up and down their throat.

Edit: I have worked out two things: Rule one of hickies, it is impolite to give them where they can be easily seen; Rule two of hickies, if you see someone with what you think is a hicky, dont ask about it.

This is because while in the office yesterday, i got a few looks when i came in, but noone said anything. I think the idea is, if you recognise it as a hicky, then you already know more than you really need to. There are just too many awkwad details that may come out in a follow up question. The other thing was, i did talk to a few people about it, and several just assumed that since the opening story i told them about for my week was getting to spar at boxing on monday that they were bruises from that. So people who recognise what they are, dont want details, people who dont recognise them, are not interested in explanations about bruises and assume their own story.